South Asia Wildlife Enforcement Network

13-Apr-2016 Comments (0)

The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has given its approval for India adopting the Statute of the South Asia Wildlife Enforcement Network (SAWEN).

With this, India will become formal member of SAWEN, a regional inter-governmental body and strengthen it's ties with the member countries in controlling the trans-boundary wildlife crime through communication, coordination, collaboration, capacity building and cooperation in the region.

What is SAWEN?

SAWEN is Regional network is comprised of eight countries in South Asia namely Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. It aims at working as a strong regional inter¬governmental body for combating wildlife crime by attempting common goals and approaches for combating illegal trade in the region.

India has set following objectives to attain the goals :

⇒ To take initiatives for bringing harmonization and standardization in laws and policies of member countries concerning conservation of fauna and flora;

⇒ To document the trend of poaching and illegal trade, and related threats to the natural biodiversity within and across countries in the region;

⇒ To strengthen institutional responses to combat wildlife crime by promoting research and information sharing, training and capacity building, technical support, sharing experiences and outreach; and

⇒ To encourage member countries to prepare and implement their National Action Plans in curbing wildlife crime and to collaborate towards effective implementation.

Background : The South Asia region is very vulnerable to illegal traffic and wildlife crimes due to presence of precious biodiversity and large markets as well as traffic routes for wildlife products in the south East Asian region. The collaboration in harmonising as well as enforcing the wildlife protection in the region is considered very important for effective conservation of such precious biodiversity.

Practice Questions

Q1

Which of the following general election holds the record for witnessing the lowest voting percentage ever?

The Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) is now critically endangered according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

The declaration was based on IUCN assessment which considers past, current and future rates of species loss.

The combined impacts of habitat loss, habitat degradation and illegal hunting equate to an 86 per cent population reduction between 1973 and 2025.

Observing the the current human behaviour toward wildlife it has been predicted that population will further decline to 47,000 animals by 2025.

Facts about Bornean orangutan :

The Bornean orangutan is a species of orangutan native to the island of Borneo. Together with the Sumatran orangutan, it belongs to the only genus of great apes native to Asia.

Like the other great apes, orangutans are highly intelligent, displaying advanced tool use and distinct cultural patterns in the wild. Orangutans share approximately 97 per cent of their DNA with humans.

Cause of decline in Population :

Deforestation: About 40 per cent of Borneo’s forests has been lost due to palm oil plantations and cutting down of trees for furniture. Threats to wild orangutan populations include poaching, habitat destruction, and the illegal pet trade.

Slow Breeding: They are slow breeders as females only reproduce once every six to eight years (the longest birth interval of any land mammal).

Researchers for the first time have found clear evidence that the thinning in the ozone layer above Antarctica is starting to heal.

The scientists said that in September 2015 the hole was around 4 million sq km smaller than it was in the year 2000 - an area roughly the size of India.

The first hole in Antarctic ozone were identified in the mid-1980s.

Ozone layer in the atmosphere’s stratospheric layer comprises of Ozone (O3), an allotrope of oxygen.

Ozone is important because it blocks out harmful ultraviolet radiation from the Sun.

Its absence increases the chances of skin cancer, cataract damage, and harm to animals and plants.

In 1986, US researcher Susan Solomon showed that ozone was being destroyed by the presence of molecules containing chlorine and bromine that came from chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), found in hairsprays to refrigerators to air conditioning units.

Jun 29, 2016MoU signed between CSIR and CIMFR for coal quality analysis

Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and Centre Institute of Mining and Fuel Research (CIMFR) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Coal Supplying companies and Power Utilities for quality analysis of coal being supplied to power utilities by coal companies.

As a part of this MoU, CSIR-CIMFR would make use of its knowledge based support in maintaining the quality of coal at national level for the entire power sector.

It is estimated that about 300 million metric tons of coal samples would be analyzed for quality per year. The contract value of the project is around Rs 250 crore per annum at minimum.

It is also expected that this project will result in improvement in performance of power plants besides levaraging benefits to the consumer in particular and society as a whole. The endevour would help the nation in sustainable energy supply and security planning for future as it may reduce import of thermal coal.

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